1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image distributing and processing apparatus in which images are processed by different image processors in accordance with parameters which are used to process images on a surface of a semiconductor integrated device, such as a semiconductor wafer, a photo-mask, or a liquid crystal display, etc.
In general, the brightness of the surface of the semiconductor integrated device, a pattern density, or the material are different depending on the surface portions of the same semiconductor integrated device. To process images at different surface portions, it is advisable to set different parameters depending on the state of the surface portions to be processed.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a known image processing apparatus, once an image of one semiconductor integrated device is input into an image processor, the image is processed using a parameter inherent to each characteristic, whatever the characteristic, such as the surface contrast, pattern density or the material, is. Therefore, for example, if the image is to be corrected in the brightness thereof, since the parameter inherent to the brightness is constant over the entire surface of the image, it is impossible to correct the image in accordance with the brightness of each surface portion. The same is true for the correction of the image in accordance with the pattern density or material, etc.
Therefore, if a surface portion of the semiconductor integrated device requires an image processed using a parameter and another surface portion requires an image processed using a different parameter, an image of the surface of the semiconductor integrated device is picked up and is processed using a parameter and thereafter, an image of the surface of the semiconductor integrated device is picked up and processed using another parameter, in the prior art.
Therefore, in the prior art, in order to process images of different surface portions of a semiconductor integrated device, using different parameters, it is necessary to obtain images the number of which is identical to the number of the parameters and to apply different parameters to the respective images to thereby combine the images corresponding to the parameters, whereby a corrected image can be obtained. Accordingly, the image processing operation is extremely troublesome and requires long time.